QUESTION

What would you say about a couple who have to do artificial insemination (such as IUI) while the woman is in niddah? Would poletet shivchat zera apply such that they would have to delay mikvah by four days?

ANSWER

Thank you for your question; it’s a really good one. My immediate intuition was that poletet should not apply here, for a few reasons.

By way of introduction, the concept of poletet shichvat zera is the basis for the common practice of waiting a minimum of four or five days before beginning the shivah nekiyim (the seven “clean days” a woman counts before going to the mikvah). The original rationale is that a woman may expel semen from her body after intercourse, and Chazal (the Sages) assume that this can occur for some time after the act. The practical concern nowadays is not one of ritual impurity, but rather whether such a discharge affects the counting of these clean days. If the discharge is treated as a meaningful bodily emission, it could invalidate a clean day or delay the start of the count.

Conceptually, the Gemara (Talmud, Niddah 42a) frames this in terms of whether a woman in such a case is considered a ro’ah (literally, “one who sees,” meaning she is treated as if she experienced a bodily discharge), or merely a noge’at (someone who had contact with semen, but not a discharge from her own body). If she is treated as a ro’ah, the discharge can interfere with the count; if not, it would not.

In halakhah, we adopt the former position and treat the woman as a ro’ah. In this sense, she is given a status parallel to that of the man who experienced the discharge (Niddah 42a; Rosh on Niddah 4:1).

In our case, however, the semen entered her body artificially, not through an act of intercourse. That is, it did not result from a direct discharge from the man into her body. The idea that we would treat her as a ro’ah merely because semen was introduced into her body, when she was not connected to the act of discharge at all, and when it did not enter her body through the man’s own experience of discharge, seems quite far-fetched. In the Gemara’s own terms, she is at most a noga’at, but she was never a ro’ah, and the status of poletet simply does not arise.

Second, there are positions among the Rishonim, even if not generally followed, that poletet is only an issue in the context of ritual impurity, and not a factor when counting the shivah nekiyim (Ra’avad, cited in Chiddushei HaRamban to Niddah 42a).

Third, there are also positions (again, not generally followed) that poletet does not apply to the later stringency known as the chumra de-Rabbi Zeira (the practice that all women count seven clean days after bleeding) at all (see Sefer Yere’im §26; Noda BiYehuda, Mahadura Tinyana, Yoreh De’ah 125).

Given all of this, it would seem quite compelling that poletet should not apply here. That said, svara (logical reasoning) alone is not sufficient, and I wanted to see whether others had addressed the issue and what proofs had been brought one way or the other.

Indeed, it has been discussed. While there are poskim (halakhic decisors) who do apply poletet in this case (Shevet HaLevi 9:183; Rav Neuwirth, cited in Nishmat Avraham Yoreh De’ah 196:11:8), many others, including Rav Ovadia Yosef (Asia 95–96, pp. 151–161) and Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Levushei Oz, p. 197), rule that it does not apply.

They bring evidence from the Rambam’s formulation (Mishneh Torah Hilchot Avot HaTumot 5:9), where he frames poletet specifically in the context of an act of intercourse. These poskim understand that an act of bi’ah (marital relations) is a necessary component of the halakhic framework of poletet. This is not exactly the same as the point above, but it is closely related: the status of poletet is tied to a relational act between man and woman, which is absent in the case of artificial insemination.

Accordingly, I feel comfortable ruling that there is no need to be concerned for poletet in this case.